It is one of those days when I keep opening documents to work on them, and I spend lots of time noodling around and trying (and failing) to make progress. Perhaps I am alone in this sort of activity, though I rather think not. It seems that the more one is convinced that something is singular, the less it's true, even if it manifests in different ways for people.

I suspect that today's lethargy is the result of a busy weekend, though my sweetheart did the lion's share of the work (he's a Leo, so "the lion's share" is doubly apt). He took down the popcorn ceiling in our bedroom - the last one remaining in the house - and we painted the ceiling (which needed two coats) and put the first coat of paint on the walls. It will need a second coat, despite being the sort of paint that is allegedly guaranteed to cover in one. Only this particularly shade of pale pink doesn't work that way.

Of course it doesn't.

Since Thursday, I've been tapering off prednisone. I haven't slept well, probably as a result. My energy levels are wobbly, at best, and today, I find I'm wrung out. Worse than that, I have that sort of feeling that I'm a pretender because I can't focus. A writer writes. An artist does art. I'm doing neither thing (or at least, I'm not getting anything accomplished when I try.) I must be a has-been. Worse than that, a never-was.

Again, I suspect I'm not the only person who has days like this. Although I do find myself wondering why it is that my nasty inner critic seems energized when the rest of me is so . . . not that.

All of which is to say that for those of you who have these days, please know you're not alone. And if you have had these sorts of days, I hope you'll drop a note, so I'll know that I'm not alone, either.

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Kelly Herold, Sarah, and I were just discussing whether this week sucked so much because of a day off, wherein we all did major housework, or because we're transitioning with the heat rising, etc. I think it's a bit of both; the extended light means sleep is something that, around 3 a.m., ceases to be unbroken, and the white noise of the fan just becomes an annoyance. Writers write, and I am just... wandering, exhausted, from pillar to post, trying something, anything.

Sometimes I'm ridiculously grateful for our poetry challenges, because THAT'S STILL WRITING, even though it's not the paid-for kind. Writers write... letters too, occasionally. And blog posts. It all counts, even if just toward clarifying our own minds.

I wonder, too, whether some of it is tied to the academic calendar that so many of us writerly types still seem to follow, even if we haven't been involved in school for years. School's out for the summer (or nearly so), and we're all shifting to something less rigorous or whatever.

Like you, I'm glad for the poetry challenges, because otherwise I haven't gotten a lot of new poetry written of late. Maybe that should be a summer thing . . . writing light poetry.